Mentos
by AKA 24601
Summary: In the wake of the premature death of one of the boys, Kyle quickly discovers that while the unfortunate boy may not have been his best friend, the loss will affect him more than he'd anticipated. T because of language and something a little bit nasty at the end.


**Well, I promised some actual stories as opposed to crapped out lists and here is one. I'm not entirely happy with it but there's nothing I can do to help once it get pasts a certain point and that point is the line below this bold text. You know where the review box is, I once again invite you to load up your catapults and start hurling shit at me down there because hey, constructive criticism's good, right? **

**At this point I'd post a disclaimer but given that I'm posting this on FF and not, say, incorporating it into an episode or anything, I think it's pretty obvious that I don't own anything and anyone who would think otherwise without a disclaimer to tell them so is a moron. Which, in fairness, doesn't rule out lawyers. (Charles Carreon, you hate filled swine, I'm looking at you you retarded little prick!) So consider that the only disclaimer I'll ever post.  
**

* * *

It had to happen eventually.

After months and years of pigging out on fast food, Cheesy Poofs and generally anything that hadn't even met anything that could call itself nutritious in its short and torturous time on Earth, Eric Cartman, as anyone with half a brain cell and a manual on correct use of it that was written in Basque by someone who'd only heard of the language the day before writing it could have predicted, died. His heart just packed up.

After the first heart attack there was one option that could save him - with only one compatible donor available, Kyle Broflovski was asked if he was willing to sacrifice himself so that Cartman could have a working heart; his reported response was "Fuck off."

The second heart attack came while he was still recovering in hospital, and that was it. He was dead.

It was three days after his death that funeral arrangements were made - they'd have a nice service, then he'd be buried, then there'd be a gathering afterwards to celebrate his life. For reasons obvious, it was one of the single most awkward days of Stan's and Kenny's lives, never mind Kyle's. In turn each were phoned up by Liane, asking them to eulogise her son. It was not as if they could refuse. Which was exactly why Kyle was sitting at his laptop, staring at a blank word document, trying to think of something - anything - appropriate to say.

"Kyle?" asked Ike. Kyle looked - his little brother was leaning in, holding a glove and a ball meaningfully.

"Not now, Ike, I've got to do this by tomorrow," Kyle groaned, partly due to the task at hand and partly due to the interruption.

"You've been doing it for three days, Kyle. Come and play." Ike also thought that it was inappropriate to ask someone who was only just thirteen to do something like an eulogy, and never mind Stan who was yet to hit the teenage years. But being as Kyle wasn't happy when Ike - who was still in all technicality far too young to justify his enormous intellect - displayed said enormous intellect, he kept that thought to himself.

Kyle sighed. "Alright, you want to play something?" It being summer, he had his window open. The snow was slushy and melting, but he suspected there'd be a sufficient cushion. He got up, picked Ike up and readied himself. "Kick the baby!"

"I'm not a baby, I'm five! And don't- UERK!" Ike couldn't complete the protest as Kyle drop-kicked him out of the window, sending him sailing majestically over the road to land face-first into the slush in the opposite garden. Kyle was happy with the kick - he played football for the middle school team. In all technicality he played wide receiver. He was mediocre at best, but when it came to scoring field goals he was unmatched, which was the main reason he was kept on the team, being as coach only wanted two platoons to deal with because he was a lazy little bastard.

With business taken care of, he turned back to the word document and tried to think of anything nice to say about the fat fuck, and, as he had been doing for three days, failed.

He got something written down eventually, with about five minutes to spare before he had to go to bed, and the funeral was early morning so there'd be no time the next day. He'd had to overstate some things, the most petty of uptight people may even have called it 'lying', but at least he actually had something.

The next day, the funeral rolled around. The turnout was high - most of Cartman's class had turned up with their families, plus a few people nobody recognised who Stan, among others, thought might just be hanging around for free food afterwards, but he didn't have the guts to go up and ask them to leave, besides which fat people who turned up at funerals for free food later on were oddly appropriate for this particular service. Kyle caught up with him and Kenny not long before the service began. "Guys, can I talk to you a minute?"

He dragged them into the vestry - as Father Maxi was out mingling with the people putting on an air of mourning for the despised little fuck in the coffin, it was private in there. "Guys, you got something for the eulogy, right?"

Kenny, dressed in one of Stan's suits being as his single light blue one didn't seem especially fitting for a funeral, nodded and displayed a few pages, while Stan said "Yeah, took me a while but I think I got something."

"Thank god," Kyle sighed. He was worried about what Kenny might have to say - Kenny had built up quite the reputation for being honest. Brutally so. With a bit of luck he might mitigate it with some nice deep musings, something else he'd been doing a bit too much, but still, his speech might end up being a bit too cringeworthy.

They rejoined the gathering outside, where everyone was sitting down ready to listen to Father Maxi ramble for a while. The casket would have been open, but they'd had a job fitting Cartman in once and they funeral director had had to seal it with lead to stop it bursting open in a glorious display of belly flab. To make up for that, they'd found a nice little spot for the grave, right under a red maple tree.

After hymns that Kyle attempted to join in with but only earned clips round the ear from his mother because of the whole Judaism thing, the time came for the eulogies. Stan went up first, taking his papers with him. Maxi sat down to one side so that Stan had a stand to put his speech down on.

"Eric Cartman was a friend of mine," he began. Kyle and Kenny exchanged a quick glance from opposite sides of the aisle in the middle of the chairs, one that said _No he wasn't_. "I think..." Stan continued, clearly cringing a bit at what he was about to say in front of half of the town. Kyle saw the shake of the head - he'd spent enough time with Stan to see that he was skipping a large segment of what he had written. "Eric wasn't my best friend, but some of the experiences I shared with him were more memorable than those with my other friends. He was always the one who'd make things happen..." Kyle zoned out. He could tell that Stan had taken the same tack as he had, saying things that weren't strictly speaking false, but could be considered misrepresentations of the truth. It was a boring speech though.

He zoned back in when Stan stepped down and sat back next to him. "That was nice, dude," he whispered as Maxi announced the next speaker. Kenny took the stand, arranging his pages so that the random text he'd printed off for show was covered by a picture of a double-D model lying on the bonnet of some European car and showing off her ballistics for a photographer who he was sure must have been pointing more than the camera in her direction.

The thing was, Kenny was much better at improvising than reading from a script. And he was much better at improvising when he had some knockers on his mind. It made things come to him much more freely - he didn't overthink what he was going to say, and when he did that he was prone to Freudian slips.

Before speaking, though, he reached around his neck and pulled off his BFF pendant and put it on top of the casket, keeping his hand there for a couple of seconds before withdrawing it. He returned to the stand. "Eric was probably my best friend," he started. "We didn't have the same thing as, say, Stan and Kyle have, but for a while I think we were closer than we were to those guys. Sometimes at home I get the absolute shit beaten out of me-" Kyle noted Maxi paling slightly at the profanity, and he glanced around for Kenny's parents but they appeared to be absent - only Karen was there. "-and if it ever got really bad and I needed to call someone, well..." He didn't finish the sentence, instead opting to glance towards the casket again. He hadn't explicitly said it was Cartman he phoned up, so he hadn't lied, and if people inferred differently from a badly timed glance that was their fault for not, say, glancing through Kyle or Stan's received call history first. A well timed glance in Craig Tucker's direction told Kyle that it was a similar situation on his phone too.

"I'll be honest, Cartman could be an ass sometimes. I'm sure we all remember when he allied himself up with C'thulhu specifically to get back at us lot, and the time he actually stole my eyes, I mean, that's just not nice." It didn't click with anyone that that was actually true, Cartman had done that. "But after it all, it was kind of endearing for him." That was it - Kyle couldn't help it. He felt Stan's hand on his back comforting him - he could tell why. Hands over the mouth, shaking uncontrollably, but he turned to Stan and showed enough of his face to show that he was not, in fact, crying. The 'endearing' comment had instead made him double over laughing. It was too much. If there was anyone who could make people laugh at a funeral that wasn't in Monty Python, it was Kenny McCormick.

"See," he continued, absently attempting and completely failing to tame his hair for a few seconds, "I think we're all aware that Eric never did anything if he didn't think he'd get something out of it. But, well, that's just who he was. I can't help thinking that every town needs a jackass like that just to keep the place interesting. Make stuff happen, you know? Like Stan was saying. So, even though I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say that I didn't enjoy his company that much-" Kyle zipped a quick text to Kenny, simply saying _DUDE!_ It was a funeral after all. "-I'm still going to miss him. I actually brought a favourite song of his along to sing while we- oh, hold on," he broke off as he felt his phone vibrate. It wasn't a fancy affair, it could send texts, make calls and that was about it. On the up side, though, it did have Snake on it and it could withstand falling onto something more yieldy than snow or from a height greater than half a foot. More to the point, it could do both at the same time.

He read the text, looked directly at Kyle and said "What?" Kyle shook his head, mouthing and gesturing in order to say shut up without looking like a complete twat in front of the town at his friend's funeral. "Sorry about that, I said I'll be singing when we're lowering the casket. Some of you-" Kenny glanced at Kyle again. "-may not like it, but it's what Eric would have wanted. Thank you." Kyle could only think _Oh, he wouldn't_. Kenny picked his sheets up, carefully hid the European chick from sight and returned to his seat

Maxi introduced Kyle, who stepped up. Kenny grinned - watching Kyle say nice things about Cartman would be an interesting experience to say the least.

"I know it's not a secret that Eric and I didn't really get along," Kyle said. "There were times where I wanted to personally hand him over to Satan - hell, that's a duty I'd have bribed people to let me have. But..." Time for some lies. "Truth is, against him giving me the AIDS virus, and repeatedly breaking into my house at night, and-" Teeth started gritting at this point. "-making out that my being Jewish is somehow a bad thing, I am going to miss him. And I thought of something that... That hopefully we can take some solace from it." He, like Stan, had to brace himself for this - it was so cheesy and awful that it could just work.

"A few years ago, my kidneys were giving up. There was only one compatible donor in town, and that was Eric. He..." Teeth grit again. This was a bit of a truth bender. "...very generously...donated one of his kidneys so that I could carry on, you know, being alive. So, I guess, he's still alive, in a way. He's alive in me." Kyle caught Kenny shaking his head and stifling a laugh. "That's all I have to say, and I don't think it does him justice. I just hope it's enough." Kyle stepped down, and after another hymn and Maxi droning on a little more they gathered round for the lowering of the casket. Kyle, Kenny and Stan would all pour a shovelful of dirt onto the coffin and then they would be off. Maxi looked at Kenny, so Kenny, with his Romanian opera training, began singing a song that could only ever be appropriate at Eric Cartman's funeral:

_"__Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!  
SA marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt.  
Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen,  
Marschier'n im Geist in unser'n Reihen mit.  
Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen,  
Marschier'n im Geist in unser'n Reihen mit!"_

Some people didn't understand it. Kyle understood perfectly, and got another text ready while Kenny was singing. Kenny's phone buzzed just as he finished - he checked the message.

_Remind me to kill you once we're done here._

Kenny shook his head at Kyle, grinning.

* * *

"Dude, you sang the fucking Nazi anthem at a funeral!" Kyle yelled. Stan had found it quite funny once he got it. The after-funeral do had long finished and the trio was now back in their normal clothes.

"Like I said, Kyle, it's what he would have wanted," Kenny chuckled. They were walking round to Stan's house for more a more appropriate get-together in the wake of Cartman dying. Stan, naturally, had the alcohol, and if there were any restrictions on Jews and alcohol, Kyle was willing to look in the other direction for the night. "So Stan," Kenny continued, manoeuvring himself between the two best friends and draping an arm over Stan's shoulders, "what kind of goods are we expecting tonight?" he asked.

"I got a shit-ton of beer," Stan said, unhelpfully.

Kenny groaned - that much was obvious. Stan had talked to him about his alcohol problems many times, he'd sort of inferred that there might be a shit-ton of beer available. "Anything else?" he asked, not trying at all to keep the levels of sarcasm that could bring down a bull elephant out of his voice.

"Ten bottles of various high percentage stuff?" Stan tried.

There came the smile. "Now, THAT is what I was looking for! Don't you think, Kyle?"

"I'm not talking to you."

"Oh, cheer up!" They went into Stan's house and straight up to his room, where Stan pulled out the promised ten bottles and what was indeed a shit-ton of beer. Kenny was impressed, and reached into one pocket and threw a few packets on top of the bed. Kyle eyed them suspiciously.

"Kenny?"

"Weed. You'll enjoy it."

"Since when have you done weed?" Stan asked as he threw cans to his guests.

"Never," Kenny shrugged. "But I get a lot of second hand smoke wafting into my room and it's not entirely bad. I was thinking that some experimentation was in order to celebrate the occasion." He paused. "I tell you, Kevin's going to beat seven shades of shit out of me as soon as he finds out I've had at his stash."

Kyle perked up a bit. "So why did you do it?"

"Two reasons. I'm used to that kind of thing happening and I really, really want to try this shit."

It bugged Kyle slightly how casually Kenny took getting the senses and a couple of internal organs beaten out of him so casually. Then he reminded himself not to care - the kid had sang the fucking Nazi anthem in his presence not six hours prior and they had to get him back for that.

Stan dished out cans of lager - Foster's. "It's not my favourite," he said as he snapped it open. "I mean, it tastes like a monkey peed into a jar of horse cum, but it's dirt cheap."

"How do you get your hands on it?" Kyle asked, strangely repeating the sentiment he'd been expressing to Kenny mere moments before.

"Same as Kenny. Difference is my dad's either too drunk or too distracted by whatever yesterday's big thing was to notice. I mean, he was doing Gangnam Style down the street yesterday. He is way too late to join in that one."

Kyle didn't like the odour coming from the can - Stan's appraisal of the taste seemed to be a little generous. But before he could ask if he had anything that didn't smell a bit like it may have at some point been used for purposes of mass genocide, Kenny spoke up. "Allow me," he said unusually grandly, "to propose a toast. To Eric Cartman." He thought about something to say for a couple of seconds, then said "Good mother fucking riddance." The three cans bounced off each other and three mouths became filled with Australian lager. It took all that Kyle could manage to avoid spitting it straight back out and hurling what remained in the can at Stan for forcing such a horrible beverage on him.

"Okay," said Kenny, who had managed his beer suspiciously easily. "Who wants a joint?"

Kyle shook his head, but Stan was being open minded - he had to be, being covered in cheap lager and all. Kenny started rolling up. "Anyone going to miss that fat fuck?" They both shook their heads. "Me neither. You have no idea how hard it was to find anything nice to say about him." He paused to complete the joint and light up. "I mean, be honest, Kyle, are you honestly happy that-" He started doing an impression of Kyle. "-part of him will still be alive-" He reverted to his normal voice. "-in you?"

"No," Kyle replied, waving his hand around in the air in front of him in a futile attempt to keep the smoke away. "Really I hope it packs up and I can get another new one. I mean, every time I find something funny I have to consciously keep it from producing a pint of milk and spraying it all over whoever's in front of me. How the fuck does that even work?"

During Kyle's rant, Kenny had taken a drag on the joint and passed it to Stan, who was busy doing his best to not cough up the smoke he'd just inhaled. "Kyle," said Kenny, leaning forward and taking the joint off Stan. "You need to lighten up a bit. Try it." Kyle shook his head again. "I'm not asking you, Kyle."

Kyle paused to consider. After a couple of seconds, he said "Apologise."

"For what?"

"You know damn well for what."

"Okay, sorry." Kyle's eyebrows moved up by about half an inch - he was expecting more. Kenny sighed. "I'm sorry I sung the Nazi anthem at Cartman's funeral. It was very remiss thing for me to do and I should have stopped at some point to consider your feelings over those of the guy we were mourning who, as we've just established, we all hate and really doesn't deserve to have his feelings taken into account. How's that?"

Kyle glared at Kenny for a few seconds, suppressing the urge to kick him in his stupid face. "That'll do, I guess," he said, making abundantly clear with the tone of his voice that it most certainly would not do and he would probably at some point call a favour from Kenny - a big one. He snatched the joint from Stan and very quickly found out exactly what all the coughing was about.

"Give it another try, it's easier the second time," Kenny offered.

"The fuck do you know?" Kyle choked out.

"I took up smoking. Not long ago." The thought behind it being he might as well, considering that if he were to get lung cancer it really wouldn't be a problem for him, his circumstances being as they were. He also stole cigarettes from his family, and made sure Karen never saw him smoking them. He'd never actually spend money on them, half the money he got went on food for him and the other half went on making Karen feel like she was actually a human being.

Kyle tried again, with a little more success. There was a haze developing in the room now. "How not long ago?"

"About a year."

"That's pretty long ago, dude."

"Not really."

Kyle sighed, noticing he wasn't getting anywhere. The joint was passed around. Then the door was knocked. "Oh," Kenny said, "I'll get it."

Stan jerked his head up. "Dude, it's my house!"

"Don't worry, I know who it is," Kenny replied, before heading downstairs. Stan glanced at Kyle for a second, before shrugging it off and taking another drag on the joint. When Kenny arrived again, though, he was followed by three people - one in a blue chullo hat, one with a maroon jacket and one apparently under the impression there was a Richter 7 quake going on.

"Dude, you invited those assholes?" Kyle shrieked. Clyde winced.

"Hey, Craig's my friend, I can't invite friends?" Stan shrugged, and nodded to the newcomers. Kyle groaned and snatched the joint from Stan.

Craig was the first to speak. "The hell happened to you, Stan? You're soaked and you reek."

"Kyle threw beer on me. I don't think he liked how it tastes."

"Oh." Stan had to remind himself that Craig probably didn't care as much as he had initially appeared to. Craig found it hard to care about anything that wasn't his guinea pig. "You got any drinking games going, Kenny?" he continued.

"I was waiting for you guys to turn up. You bring anything for Tweek? I don't think it's a good idea for him to get drunk." Craig brandished two large thermo flasks. Tweek was holding one too, that made at least five litres of coffee. That should last the night.

"As long as we're not doing anything," Clyde offered, "I was thinking we could do a sort of Cartman themed I Never."

Kenny grinned and turned to Stan. "Screw this shit, Stan, we're getting the heavy guns out." Stan groaned, but obliged.

That was about the last thing Kyle remembered before the night drifted away into a haze of nothingness. The next thing he could recall was waking up in his underwear in Stan's bed, sandwiched between him, who was in pyjamas, and Kenny, who had his back to Kyle and was curled up in that very specific kind of way that didn't leave much to the imagination. His not wearing anything at all didn't help Kyle's urge to throw up.

He sat up - that angered the Norse god who was throwing a temper tantrum inside his head. He ground one palm against his forehead. A glance to the floor confirmed that Clyde had also spent the night, with Craig and Tweek disappeared. Kyle rolled over Stan, prompting an annoyed groan, and ran to the toilet. Up came dinner from the night before. _I_, Kyle thought, _am never drinking again._ He locked the door and turned the shower on.

* * *

The bell rang. Five hundred kids filed out to the canteen, among them Stan and Kyle. Their art class was just across the corridor from the canteen so they had first pick at the crap food that was on offer, but they were still surprised to see someone decked out in full orange clothes sitting at their spot so quickly. Once they got their food, they sat across from him. "Skipping class again, Kenny?" Stan asked, not really caring.

"Wasn't my fault this time, actually," Kenny replied as the canteen filled and the sound of people moaning about homework assignments and discussing people of the opposite gender. "Dad and Kevin had a little domestic last night over the missing weed they only just found out about. Kevin had kept a count of how many joints worth he had left, he thought dad had taken it, eventually I got dragged into it like always, I might have let slip it was my fault. Only got let out of hospital about an hour ago, soon as they were sure my arm wasn't broken. And it's a fucking long walk from there to here. I've been here for about, ooh, five minutes?"

Kyle did notice Kenny wasn't using his left arm. He knew he didn't like to be pressed on it though so, as uncomfortable as the casualness with which he had reported his misfortune made him, he ignored it. Instead, he offered "Kevin kept a count of how many joints worth of weed he had left?"

Kenny nodded. "I didn't know he could do division. Fuck, I didn't know he could count."

Kyle nodded and turned to Stan to say something but was interrupted by a slap on the back. "Hey," greeted Clyde, sitting down on Kyle's other side. "The other guys are just in the toilet, they're going to be a few minutes."

"Well, they better wash their hands," Kyle thought aloud, not wanting to think of people eating food with pee on their hands. That was just gross, and not just because of the pee. "How've you been?"

"It's been a pretty hectic two weeks. So many people are having parties after fatass bought it, I've been struggling to keep up." He paused to start on his meal, what the canteen staff had assured them were meatballs but could very easily have been the testicles of a variety of domestic animals going by the taste. "By the way, Kyle, Kenny, there's football practice tonight. Coach isn't in tomorrow, it's been brought forward."

"Can't come," Kenny replied through a mouthful of canine bollocks - he didn't care, he was just grateful for the warm food. "Dead arm. You've got backup safeties anyway, doesn't matter that much, right?"

"Guess so. You coming, Kyle?"

"Yeah, whatever." Kyle tentatively tried his meatballs, promptly spat it right back onto his plate and pushed it away. The lunch break was an hour, he could run to KFC or something. Kenny was the first to take the abandoned food. It was a few minutes before the table filled up - there was a marked absence on Kenny's side of the table, which nobody gave a shit about. Him, Craig and Tweek had room to sit now, with room for Butters whenever he was feeling not-shy enough to join them. They were actively thankful to be rid of the fat arse that took up a third of the bench. What with a fortnight having passed, nobody even mentioned Cartman much any more.

After a few minutes of small talk, Kyle turned to Stan. "OK, this project, it needs finishing soon. How long do you reckon it's going to take?"

Stan did a bit of thinking then replied "Well it's only a pencil sketch but it is on a huge sheet of paper. I'd put at least three hours aside for it."

Kenny perked up slightly, having finished gorging himself. "What are you drawing?"

Kyle sighed. "No, Kenny, we are still not drawing any naked girls and we likely won't be until high school." There was an audible moan. It would then have been appropriate for Craig, sat on Kenny's left, to look up at Kyle in order to deliver a purposefully insulting observation, but he did not - he kept concentrating on his meal while delivering it.

"Why the hell do you care so much about art? It's the most boring subject here."

"We happen to be good at it. It's going to boost our average up if we do it well and _on time_."

"Doesn't make it any less faggy though."

Kyle's teeth grit. "This coming from the star drama student? What was it you do to warm up again, a fucking tree impression?" He caught Kenny glaring at him - he reminded himself that Kenny was also into drama and music.

"So what is it you are drawing then?" Craig asked, dodging the question. There was a pause. The honest answer, which also happened to be very heavily tree-related, was not what Kyle wanted to say, but he couldn't think of anything particularly badass.

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does.

"_No it doesn't_."

"Yes it-"

Kyle stood up and banged his fists on the table, rattling plates and spilling his drink all over Clyde. "IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER, CRAIG!" Craig hadn't expected that - a rare glimmer of fear passed through his eyes. "WE'RE NOT THE ONES WHO HAVE TO PRETEND TO SWAY THE FUCK AROUND WHEN ALL WE ARE IS AN ABSOLUTE FUCKWIT IN A STUPID HAT IN A STUPID FUCKING DRAMA THEATRE!" Stan leaned over and tried to pull Kyle back down before the entire school noticed instead of just most of it. He was shaken off. "AND ANOTHER THING, I DON'T SPEND MY FREE TIME FUCKING MY SPASTIC BOYFRIEND-" Tweek, sensing that he was being referred to, promptly spazzed out. "-JUST BECAUSE HE WORKS LIKE A FUCKING VIBRATING FLESHLIGHT OR SOME GAY SHIT LIKE THAT! SO DON'T! CALL! ME! FAGGY!" Kyle took a deep breath and was about to start again, but two voices cut him off - one worried, one annoyed.

Both said "_Kyle!_" He glanced between Stan, who looked genuinely scared of his best friend, and Kenny, who was giving Kyle a look he normally reserved for intimidating people when he was doing his vigilante thing. Kyle then looked around - everyone in the room was staring at him. Stan stood up, pushing his tray to Kenny and taking Kyle by the arm. "Come on," he muttered, dragging him out of the hall. Once they were safely gone, Kenny turned to Craig, his expression losing the angry portion of it at a speed that could only mean he wasn't actually angry in the first place.

"So you two are boyfriends?" His response was a middle finger - Kenny chuckled at that response, like he always did when he got it from Craig, then quickly followed his friends out.

Kyle followed Stan, and Kenny once he'd caught up, into the nearest available boys' toilets and there Stan locked the door and turned to him. "Dude..." That was all he could say for a few minutes. He leaned against the door, watching Kyle with a worried face. "The fuck was that?" Kenny just stood there, silently lighting a cigarette and inhaling the sweet cancer.

Kyle stuttered for a few seconds then resolutely failed to reply. Stan sighed. "Dude, we need to talk to you."

"About what?" Kyle asked, somewhat dumbly

"About you, Kyle. I'm worried." Stan sighed, then continued. "Look, the last week and a bit you've been getting irritated, angry even, at really small things. I mean, you were nearly punching yourself yesterday just because you got pointed out on something that hardly even matters in English. What was it, split infinitives?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Kyle, there is _nothing_ wrong with a split infinitive!" Stan continued, exasperated that Kyle couldn't see what he was getting at. "They're actually really useful for placing emphasis in the right place, was that what you were thinking when you did it?"

Kyle paused, unsure of what had in fact been going through his mind at the time. After a few seconds, he responded with a very awkward "...yeah?"

"So why'd you beat yourself up over it?" Kyle couldn't answer that. "You were swearing and banging your head on the table way harder than can possibly be healthy. You knew what you were doing and there was nothing wrong with it, and at the very worst you lost two marks out of fucking fifty! What is so wrong with that!?" Stan's voice had been gradually getting louder over the course of that sentence, reaching shout levels by the end.

Kyle still didn't speak. Stan sighed, cranking the volume down a bit. "I think you really need to talk to someone."

"Yeah, but the school counsellor's shit at his job." Whether it was bad luck or some cruel joke by the forces of karma, Mr. Mackey had been transferred to the middle school at the same time as the boys had moved up. He'd been replaced at the elementary by someone far more competent than he. Stan knew that as well as Kyle did, so he could only sigh. He opened his mouth to make Kyle an offer.

He was beaten to it though. Kenny spoke up first, stepping forward from his position by the sinks - as far away from the smoke detector as was comfortably possible. "I'll listen if you like." Kyle looked at Kenny for a second, then to Stan. Stan nodded. He knew how good Kenny was at listening, and occasionally giving advice. Kyle sighed, sitting down on the floor in a patch that seemed suspiciously sticky, but he didn't really care. Stan sat down next to him and rested his head against the cubicle wall, with Kenny taking the other side.

"Okay..." Kyle began. "The last couple of weeks, I've just been feeling really, really angry. Like I could go full on Hulk rage angry." He thought about how to continue for a second as Kenny and Stan exchanged a single glance that said two words, and those words were 'shit' and 'no', though not necessarily in that order. "Even little things, like you said, they just really get to me now," Kyle continued, missing the glance completely.

"You've always had a bit of a short fuse," Stan commented. "Why'd you think this has come about?"

"I don't know," Kyle replied. Not maliciously or angrily or anything, it was genuine unknowing in his voice. "I mean, up till now I've always been able to contain it." He paused. "Why are you shaking your head?"

"You've never been one for containing anger, Kyle," Stan said. "You've always managed to let it out."

"How?" Kyle replied, still not getting it.

"The only thing you ever shouted at was fatass," Stan observed. "And he always shouted back. Nobody could blame you for hating him, nobody liked him. You of all people hated him. He'd always push you over the edge and you could let things out at him. He could take it. But now he's gone." It was Stan's turn to pause. "You've got nothing to let it out at and you've been containing everything. Now it's just one argu- no, not even an argument, it was just a bit of teasing from Craig. And you go nuclear."

Kyle thought about it as Stan talked. "So...I _need _Cartman to stop myself being a dick?"

"Basically." Stan thought about it for a second, thinking of ways to ease picturing exactly how bad it was, but Kenny got there first.

"Think about a soda."

Kyle looked to Kenny a little too quickly, being as the confusing way to add to the conversation did somewhat throw him. "This better be going somewhere, Kenny," he warned.

"Don't worry, it is. You know what happens when you drop a mento in there?" Kyle nodded, having run that little experiment himself many times, once to test its usefulness as a weapon for use against certain little Canadian brothers. "Well," Kenny continued, "think about things that happen to you. Little things that irritate you. They're like mentos. They're little things, inconsequential on their own, but there are thousands of them. It makes everything fizz up. Cartman is like a hole in the bottle though, everything can get out slowly. There's a bit of mess, sure, but nothing that can't be mopped up quickly.

"Now he's gone. You've got no outlet but the mentos keep coming. Two weeks on, there's so much, and all it takes is one more mento. One more insignificant little mento wearing a blue chullo hat. And boom." Kenny raised his hands up quickly, simulating either a Diet Coke geyser or a fusion bomb exploding - the shapes were a bit similar. "You explode." That didn't help clarifying what the gesture had represented in the slightest.

Kyle couldn't speak for a couple of minutes. "So..." he said, slowly, as if saying the words would cause his throat to dive out of his mouth and choke him to death for saying it. "Cartman...was my..." An extra long pause as Kyle's throat debated whether to choke him before he could get the word out. "Pacifier?"

"Basically," Kenny said as stubbed out, echoing Stan's concurring opinion. Kyle sighed, not wanting to think about the douche he was inevitably going to turn into. He started staring down the floor sullenly. There was silence.

After a few minutes he turned to Kenny. "Dude, I'm sorry for what happened in there. There's nothing faggy about drama class, it's just..."

Kenny smiled at him warmly and put one hand on Kyle's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Kyle." The smile turned into a very cheeky grin. "I'll forgive you if you let the whole Nazi anthem thing go."

Kyle grimaced. "Awh, dude..." Kyle had been planning to extort quite a few favours from Kenny over that little stunt he'd pulled. Kenny looked expectant though, so he didn't see much choice. "Alright."

"Awesome!"

* * *

Kyle took the rest of the day off. Stan covered for him, taking the message to the principal that Kyle had been taken ill. So much for football practice He took the long walk home rather than catching a bus or anything. He stopped in at KFC, as he'd planned, and ate on the way home, ticking over what Stan and Kenny had told him. Then he got a text - from Cartman. His jaw dropped, but it promptly reset when he read the text. It was from Liane - she was just using Cartman's phone. Which made sense - Cartman had had their numbers and Liane had not. Apparently she wanted to see them that night to deal with giving away Cartman's stuff.

He decided against going home. He spent a few hours contemplating down at Stark's pond, trying to get anywhere with thinking about how to avoid blowing up at Craig again. He was interrupted by a text from Kenny. _Dude, where the hell are you?_

Kyle didn't answer - he was too busy running in the general direction of Cartman's house - instead of keeping to road and path, he elected to take a more direct route which involved vaulting quite a few fences.

It took all of ten minutes for him to get to Liane's house. As soon as he marginally got his breath back knocked the door. She answered fairly quickly. Kyle apologised for being late and joined the other two on the sofa. Kenny couldn't help laughing a bit at Kyle being still very much out of breath. Stan, on the far side of Kenny, said "Kyle, your hair's sticking out." Kyle adjusted his ushanka quickly to hide the embarrassing bright red Jewfro, prompting more laughs from Kenny.

Liane came in from the kitchen with a plate of cookies, which Kyle and Stan let Kenny have first pick at, him not being able to eat well on a regular basis.

"Okay, boys, the reason I wanted you to come here is I need to talk about Eric." They stopped eating and listened in. "I've got all his things boxed and ready to go, but he never had a will so I'd like you three to take everything. You were his best friends, after all." She paused for a second. "Everything's upstairs if you want to sort things out between you." Stan and Kenny nodded and left, but Kyle hung back for a second.

"Ms. Cartman..." he started.

"Liane, please."

"Liane, I... Do you mind if I talk to you about Cartman for a while?"

Liane shuddered for a second, but nodded.

"I... I think you know that Cartman and me, we didn't really like each other, right?" The understatement to end all understatements, perhaps, but times called for delicacy. Kyle could, of course, have said that he thought Cartman was a fat cunt who deserved precisely what he got and gotten the same message across, but that would have been ever so slightly not cool.

Liane nodded. "Yes, Eric was talking about how he wanted to... I don't think you want to know, actually."

Kyle nodded, fully understanding. "Yeah, well..." He groaned at having to say this. "I think I'm actually going to miss him." Liane leaned back in her chair and sighed. "Are you sure you don't mind me talking about this, I know it's a bit soon..."

She paused for a second then shook her head. "No, actually, it's... It's a bit too soon." Kyle nodded and moved to get up and join the others, but Liane continued. "Eric was always a bit difficult, but he was still my poopsiekins and..." She sniffed a little. "I'm really going to miss him, Kyle," she said.

Kyle could only dither for a couple of seconds, then sat back down. "I know. I mean, sometimes..." He thought about how best to word this. "I've got this cousin. Kyle Schwartz. And I hate him. It's not his fault, it's just who he is, it's..." Kyle didn't know how to put it delicately. "But if he died I'd still really miss him. I can't imagine what it's like to be in that situation because I've never been there, but..." He heard another sniff and stood up again. "I should go..."

Liane nodded, wiping one eye. Kyle left to join the others in sacking Cartman's room, feeling a bit guilty about what had just happened and hoping he wouldn't hear crying coming from downstairs.

Once they were done there and Stan and Kenny - who had reclaimed his old PSP - had headed in their direction, before he went home, Kyle ended up revisiting the graveyard, carting his box of stuff along behind him. The sun had long gone down and a beautiful starry sky was gracing him, and adding to the lovely night were a horde of fireflies who were investigating the graveyard's potential for suitability as living quarters. He walked along the rows, and stopped at the newest headstone, right under the maple tree. He distastefully regarded it for a while, then almost reluctantly stepped forward. "Hey," he said, knowing nobody could hear him but it making sense for him to talk anyway, in a very weird kind of way.

Kyle paused for a few seconds then. He'd always thought nobody had liked Cartman, but it was too easy to forget about a few people. For all Butters said, he'd liked Cartman. Kenny had kept that BFF necklace right up until he'd put it on the coffin, even after everything that Cartman had done to get him to get rid of it. There was his mother, of course - that pang of guilt wasn't going away easily. And, against everything, Kyle had realised that maybe there were a few upsides of having Cartman around.

"Look, fatass," he started, "I know I didn't like you, and you didn't like me. That's... ugh..." It was occurring to Kyle, round about then, that what he was doing was fundamentally retarded and maybe he could invest time doing actual work rather than making peace with someone he had absolutely no intention of doing so with.

"So, today..." Kyle took a deep breath. "I blew up. I completely blew up at Craig. I mean, the asshole kind of deserved it, he was goading me a little, but I went way over the top. And I brought Tweek into it, I mean, he didn't have anything to do with it." Kyle shuddered, remembering exactly how bad it had been. How bad _he _had been, to be precise. As he processed what he was about to say he admired the star field above the horizon and the fireflies below. After a few seconds, he continued.

"I almost lost Kenny too." It really did pain Kyle, the face Kenny had given him after he'd blown up. "Him and Stan, they're the ones who stopped me from taking things too far. I think I might have offended him, and you know how he is, I mean, I didn't even mention him being poor or anything." A sigh, then Kyle stepped forward again and put one hand on top of the gravestone.

"It's because of you, fatass. You... You kept me safe." Kyle couldn't believe he'd just said that. A firefly briefly flew over the grave before disappearing, sending a flicker along the epitaph. "To be around, anyway. I could always blow up at you and you'd just react the same way, you'd be the first to blow up half the time. You were... I could take out a bad day on you and know that you could take that. You were my stress ball." Kyle thought about what to say next as the firefly returned with a friend.

"And now you're gone. I don't have my stress ball, I'm going to have to take fucking anger management or something. I'm going to have to direct everything at Ike when I boot him halfway across town, and then he's going to grow too big to kick and it's going to be down to kicking the ball in football and that's just not the same as having someone to actually scream and yell at." Kyle thought about Kenny, Stan and Butters, what they'd have to deal with.

"I don't think anyone else can take it like you could. I mean, Craig, maybe, but not in the same way. He's just... All he does is sit there, he flips people off, I'm not even sure if any genuine emotion's passed by him in the last decade. He can't help me vent like you." Kyle stopped talking for a while, and sat down on the grass. He looked at the grave for a while, wondering if he was really going to miss Cartman for more than his helpfulness regarding anger management.

Eventually he spoke again. "I guess we did have some good times, didn't we?" he said, smiling faintly. "Like..." There was a very, _very _long pause. "Like...uh..." Kyle couldn't actually think of anything. "I mean..." Then it hit Kyle - as hard as he was trying to find some good memories to reminisce about, Cartman had always made life difficult for everyone, but especially for him.

All the memories he had of Cartman were bad. Kyle's face turned less from reminiscent and more to shocked with each memory that decided to pop up, and then on to angry. The fast food chain. The whole Family Guy debacle. Wall Mart. The unique revenge against Scott Tenorman. All the comments about his hair colour, and especially his religion.

They carried on coming. The ginger revolution thing. Eating all the skin out of a KFC bucket while the rest of them were distracted. The Passion. C'thulhu. Fixing the 2012 election for arguably the best cause available then backtracking on it. Kyle's teeth grit at the point of the HIV debacle springing up in an effort to dredge up that particular unwanted memory.

At the point of all the craps he'd had to clean off his front doorstep first thing in the morning, Kyle forgot it. Being a stress ball did not mean Cartman had the right to piss him off at every opportunity he got. That was it - it was Kyle's turn. He glanced around just to check nobody would see this, then undid his belt, dropped his pants and squatted over the grave, staring at the headstone. "Let's see how you like it, you fat fuck," he whisper-yelled, in the 'I'm angry but I don't want to be seen right now' sort of way.

And then, staring the name on the headstone down like it had just spat in his face and then told him that he should be more careful to avoid flying spit globules, he passed an arse-tearing KFC-fuelled motion directly onto the spot above where Cartman's head was.

It was a full two minutes before Kyle stood up, using leaves from the tree as toilet paper. He turned to leave, stopped, then turned again full circle to stare at the nicely defiled grave. He started kicking the headstone to punctuate his sentence. "THAT! WAS! FOR! EVERY! TIME! YOU! BELITTLED! MY! PEOPLE! YOU! FUCKING! FAT! ASS!" He'd been kicking left footed, so when he dropped his foot, he landed it on his right and span around, finishing off with an extra-powerful spinning kick, screaming as his foot connected. Kyle heard something crack - he was a good kicker, after all. The firefly flew past a crack in the stone, running directly between THEODORE and CARTMAN.

Then Kyle, having very pointedly failed to make peace with Cartman, left, very satisfied with his work. He thought that that little session should keep him safe for maybe a month. He smiled a little as he walked out of the gates - maybe his vent wasn't gone after all. He glanced up at the cloudless sky and issued a mental challenge to the universe.

_All the mentos you've got. Bring it on._


End file.
